David F. Brochu: Shutdown as seizure: How power expanded in the dark

To The Daily Sun,

The 2025 government shutdown — now the longest in U.S. history — was not a failure of governance. It was a calculated expansion of executive authority, and Congress may have just surrendered the power of the purse without realizing it.

Under the Antideficiency Act, federal agencies cannot spend appropriated funds without Congressional approval. But this administration used the shutdown to redefine “essential” on its own terms. The Office of Management and Budget directed agencies to issue “reduction in force” notices to furloughed workers in programs that don’t align with presidential priorities — a move unprecedented in shutdown history. [abcnews.go]

Constitutionally, Congress controls spending. Yet when funding lapses, the executive branch decides which services continue, which employees work unpaid, and which programs quietly disappear. This administration dismissed 200,000 federal workers before the shutdown; during it, that number may have reached 300,000. [aljazeera.com]

The courts are the only check remaining, but litigation takes months. Meanwhile, SNAP benefits were withheld until judges intervened. Foreign aid was frozen by executive order. Federal research, from CDC to NIH, was halted mid-project. Each action tested constitutional boundaries — and most held.[nzmj.org.nz]

When Congress can’t pass a budget, the president governs by omission. Agencies that lose funding lose function. Programs without champions vanish. The shutdown becomes a tool: force legislative paralysis, then reshape government unilaterally while Congress debates.

This isn’t partisan speculation. Legal scholars at Brookings, the Constitution Center, and the Partnership for Public Service have warned that this shutdown marks “the single biggest expansion of presidential power in American history.” [constitutioncenter.org]

When it ends, we may find that Congress no longer controls what it funds — only whether funding exists at all. The rest? Executive discretion.

Welcome to the administrative presidency. It arrived while government was closed.

David F. Brochu

Belmont